Had my meet today but I have to first post about the harrowing weight cutting experience I had yesterday. This is embarrassing because some women lose 10+ pounds… And I went through all if this to lose just 5. For whatever reason, it just wasn’t happening on this day.

My weight to start was around 137. In my first weight cut test, I had cut from 140 no problem.

Did the water load and that had me at 134.5. I went back and forth between treadmill and sweltering attic in the garbage bags and sweats for hours, losing like .1 every 20 minutes. Finally, at 5:30 I’m still .5lbs over, I’m drained to the point I can’t even speak. I was so close to quitting, was on autopilot, just forcing myself through it again and again, seemed like it would never happen, then finally made weight at 132.2 ( I think 132.3 is the cutoff) at 6:30PM (weigh ins were till 7:30).

I drove like grandma on the way there so I’m sure its my own damn fault that I got rear ended! I call my husband and you’d think he’d be like ‘wtf did you do to the car’ but his only inquisition is ‘omg are you going to make weigh in??’ lol. I got there late but they were there thank goodness.

Luckily, it was a female doing the weigh in. I weighed in in shorts/t-shirt at 134. I knew stripping down wasn’t going to give me 2 pounds, did anyway, and 133.4. I wanted to cry. The girl there was so nice, she’s like ‘did you bring your running shoes?’. I did, I always do, but I was so out of it I grabbed my matflexes! Awesome arch support (not). I didn’t think I had an ounce of fight left in me. I wanted to badly to tell her I couldn’t do it, there was nothing left. But I laced up, threw on a hoodie, and hit the road with a heavy heart, I didn’t think it was going to happen.

I am not conditioned for any sort of running, but I ran as best I could for 20 minutes, I was so dead my hands were banging into my feet, starving, wanted to drink the puddles. I was sure it wasn’t enough, but I dragged myself back in, stripped down, stepped on the scale and made it at 132 on the dot.

Now it is like 8:30PM, I down pedialyte and start popping sushi in the car. The first bite I take, my throat and roof of my mouth instantly swell up and I can’t swallow. Allergic reaction?! This happens with kiwi, not sure why it is happening now. I can’t swallow, but no asphyxiation (so far) so we’re good. Well, not good, but alive.

By the time I got home, I could not stomach any food. Husband was trying to force feed me sweet potatoes but I literally couldn’t eat it, just chewing the food, not swallowing and trying not to barf. He was pouring gatorade in me like rocky, and my calves started cramping like labor pains, then my shins. My foot couldn’t get out of this mangled position, and stomach was cramping so I couldn’t stand up straight. He alternated ice and heat on my shins and tried rotating my ankles for me, every muscle was now seizing up. Then I got really nauseuos and barfed up all the liquid I just worked so hard to put down.

At night, I had to get up to pee every few minutes, and when I did, everything felt VERY heavy, and out of touch. I was slamming into walls and stomping though I didn’t mean to. At this point, I was thinking of withdrawing from the meet.

In the early morning, I drank another gallon, forced down a small meal, foam rolled (cramps were gone but VERY stiff, and I had shinsplints) and took some empty bar/ broomstick squats – which was a very good idea. My beginning squats were so horrid, I don’t think I would have been able to work through that there.

Meet Report – APA

Squat:1st attempt: 225
Felt very light, as did all of the warm-ups. I have a bad habit of getting nervous and rushing my setup, and as part of that, losing all lat tightness. Squat goal for this meet was to learn how to channel the nerves into lat tightness, and it went great

2nd attempt: 245
also felt like nothing. I wrapped my own knees for the meet and it was a good move, it helped with some of the nervous (potentially spastic) energy.

3rd attempt: 260 (20lb Meet PR)
My technique was way off, I kind of rushed it and over-corrected my usual failure point by pushing backward more than I needed to, but it went up ok.
This matched my gym best. After the night I had, I wasn’t into going for a PR-PR.

Bench:
Due to a truncated training cycle, i thought my bench was going to be in worse shape than it actually was.

Opener: 150
Smooth sailing

2nd Attempt: 155
Super Easy

3rd Attempt: 160 MISS
I don’t know what the heck got into me. It was going up just fine, not hard at all, but in the top 2/3, I decided to shoot the bar way over my stomach. It would have been fine and was going up so easy, I don’t know why I did that. Still ok with it though because I know 160+ would be fine had I not been stuck on stupid

Deadlift:Opener: 335
A bit of cns shock as always. No matter what my opener is, it always looks and feels terrible.

2nd attempt: 365 (5lb meet PR)
I was a little nervous because I look forward to the whippy bar at meets, and from what I understood, this was just a regular bar. Still went up though.

3rd attempt: 375 (miss)
By this point, I was DONE. I could feel it. I’ve been fiddlef*king around on my squat for so long, I’ve never had to account for actually being tired from it. Between that and the previous 365 pull, and the food/hydration issues, there was just nothing left to give. I did zero mental prep. Walked over to the bar thinking ‘what in the flipping hell am I doing back here again?’ It barely left the floor.

Total: 780@132. I am actually the most proud of this total than any of my other meets. Not because the total is higher, but because between weigh-ins, the horrible night before, and how I felt meet day, there were so many times I just wanted to quit. And if I actually wasn’t able to make weight and had to compete in the 148’s, it still would have been an elite total for the 148’s. Considering that my first meet, almost 2 years ago, I totaled 555 @ 148, that’s progress. That is a 225lb gain so far, at a lighter bodyweight.

A friend had posted this earlier in the week and it was just the thing to get through the water cut: